Replace Your Expiring DASDEC IPAWS Certificate

Digital Alert Systems and Monroe Electronics announced the availability of an important update of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) digital certificates used to authenticate messaging from the IPAWS system. The companies have released updated IPAWS Certificate Authority (CA) credentials for the One-Net™ and DASDEC™ series of Emergency Alert System/Common Alerting Protocol (EAS/CAP) encoder/decoders to replace a certificate in the current certification chain that will expire on Sept. 24. One-Net and DASDEC users in the U.S. are advised to replace the soon-to-expire certificate to assure that devices configured to require message authentication will continue to operate properly. T

“DASDEC and One-Net users are urged to take the simple step of updating their certificate files before Sept. 24 to allow continued authentication of IPAWS CAP alert messaging,” said Ed Czarnecki, senior director of strategy and government affairs for Monroe Electronics and Digital Alert Systems. “This is the second such certificate replacement this year, so we are actively working with FEMA IPAWS to look at methods for automating this update process and hope to have such a process in place before the next certificate update occurs in 2019.”

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September 19 Meeting: Digital Watermarking

You missed a great presentation if you weren’t with us for this meeting. Niels Thorwirth of Verimatrix gave an overview of content identification, recognition and marking technologies used as a data carrier or forensic tool with a deep dive into one implementation of digital watermarking. Niels described watermarking in a simple but meaningful way. 

Many thanks to iHeartMedia for providing the space.

About Niels

Niels Thorwirth is the VP of Advanced Technology at Verimatrix, Inc. and is responsible for Innovation and Research in areas such as digital watermarking, IoT Security and Machine Learning. Since April 2005 Niels Thorwirth is spearheading content security innovation efforts to meet and exceed requirements of content owners and digital TV operators, resulting in among others the Verimatrix VideoMark® and StreamMark® forensic video watermarking technologies.

Prior experience includes research activity at the Fraunhofer Society and guiding the technology development at MediaSec, Inc. in Providence, RI, and Essen, Germany, from the company’s inception to its acquisition. Mr. Thorwirth has published several international papers and obtained various patents in the field of digital rights management and digital watermarking. He holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science and Business Management from the University of Mannheim, Germany and the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France.

Christyahna Finally Gets CP to Build Lemon Grove AM Station

On August 29, 2018, the FCC granted a Construction Permit for Christyahna Broadcasting to build a 500 W day/night AM station on the 1400 kHz “graveyard” channel in Lemon Grove. The daytime pattern location is in the middle of the old KSDO tower site. The evening pattern location is at a residence on Berry Street in Lemon Grove.

Accompanying the CP is an application to operate a translator on 93.7 MHz from Mt. San Miguel with 4 watts vertical aimed northeast toward El Cajon and Santee.

According to Wikipedia, Christyahna principal Gerry Turro was past Chief Engineer at WNEW New York, then the operator of the famous “Jukebox Radio” network WJUX in northern New Jersey. The FCC eventually broke up the network of low power FM stations in 2003 after it was accused by competitors of improperly extending its coverage with translators outside its primary coverage area using fiber links to the various transmitters. Turro built KRLY-LP in Alpine, California, but transferred it in 2005.

[Edited 9/6/2018 to correct transmitter locations.]

New XHTJB Channel 15 DTV Causing Ruckus in LA Metro

After KPBS-TV abandoned channel 15 during the digital conversion in June 2009, the FCC allocated that spectrum to first responders in the Los Angeles and Orange Country for use in mobile 2-way voice communications, otherwise known as  “T-band” public service spectrum. Past UHF-TV channels 14, 16, and 20 are also so designated in the L.A. metro area.

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SBE National Re-elects Jim Leifer as President

(By Chris Scherer, SBE Communications Director) The Society of Broadcast Engineers, the association for broadcast and multimedia technology professionals, announces the results of the 2018 election for the national board of directors. Jim Leifer, CPBE, was re-elected as the society’s president. Leifer is senior manager of broadcast operations at American Tower Corporation, Andover, MA. Continue reading SBE National Re-elects Jim Leifer as President

Society of Broadcast Engineers